Titled:    Poll: Republicans tend to be gun owners

PRINCETON, NJ, United States (UPI) -- A Gallup poll finds that Republicans are more likely to be gun owners and hunters than Democrats.

The poll found that 40 percent of U.S. residents say they live in a household with a gun in the home or on the property. Thirty percent say they own a gun personally while 12 percent say the weapon belongs to another member of the household.

A majority of Republicans, 55 percent, report living in a household with a gun, while only 32 percent of Democrats do.

Overall, equal numbers of gun owners use the weapons for protection, hunting and target shooting. But these numbers also have a partisan tinge, with Republicans more likely to give hunting and target shooting as reasons for owning a weapon.

The poll says that gun ownership has gone up and down over the years. In October, when the Gallup Organization conducted its most recent crime poll, it found that a smaller percentage of people own guns now than from 1959 to 1968 and 1989 to 1993. In 1999, only one in three households had a gun.

So over the last seven years, the percentage of households with a gun has risen from 33% to 40%.

There are an estimated 250 million firearms in the US. Between 300 million people and just over 100 million households. If only 40% of these have a gun, that makes for over six guns per gun-owning household.

Just six? It's nice to be above average...